[COMMENT: The comment below is
from an email sent to my parishioners...

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

The piece below is an
extraordinary piece of writing about America. I can add only that the
caliber of men our military can produce is what we in the Lord's army ought
also to be producing on the spiritual level. We are being attacked from
within our own civil government and some church governments by persons who
have no respect for our covenant documents, Bible on one hand, and the
Declaration of Independence and Constitution on the other, and are
systematically seeking to destroy both.

God took the trouble to give us
America, and we Christians had better start discipling ourselves to take it
back from our internal enemies and keep it for God. We have spiritual
"large blue trucks" bearing down on us just like below. We need to have men
and women who can stand toe to toe against them doing what two soldiers
did. Every military contest is a subset of the larger and continuing
spiritual war going on all the time.

That means
that we must get prepared, we must get trained in spiritual warfare and go
on the offensive. "Semper fidelis" applies in the spiritual world just as
in the military. We cannot stand idly by while others are giving their
lives for our protection. See"Give me liberty or give me
death...!" - speech by Patrick Henry.
Why stand we here idle?

On Nov 13,
2010 Lt General John Kelly, USMC gave a speech to the Semper Fi Society of St. Louis, MO. This was 4 days after his son, Lt Robert
Kelly, USMC was killed by an IED while on his 3rd Combat tour. During his
speech, General Kelly spoke about the dedication and valor of the young men
and women who step forward each and every day to protect us. During the
speech, he never mentioned the loss of his own son. He closed the speech
with the moving account of the last 6 seconds in the lives of 2 young
Marines who died with rifles blazing to protect their brother Marines.

"I will
leave you with a story about the kind of people they are...about the quality
of the steel in their backs...about the kind of dedication they bring to our
country while they serve in uniform and forever after as veterans.

Two years
ago when I was the Commander of all U.S. and Iraqi forces, in fact, the 22nd
of April 2008, two Marine infantry battalions, 1/9 "The Walking Dead," and
2/8 were switching out in Ramadi. One battalion in the closing days of their
deployment going home very soon, the other just starting its seven-month
combat tour. Two Marines, Corporal Jonathan Yale and Lance Corporal Jordan Haerter, 22 and 20 years old
respectively, one from each battalion, were assuming the watch together at
the entrance gate of an outpost that contained a makeshift barracks housing
50 Marines. The same broken down ramshackle building was also home to 100
Iraqi police, also my men and our allies in the fight against the terrorists
in Ramadi, a city until recently the most dangerous city on earth and owned
by Al Qaeda.

Yale
was a dirt poor mixed-race kid from Virginia with a wife and daughter, and a
mother and sister who lived with him and he supported as well. He did this
on a yearly salary of less than $23,000.

Haerter, on
the other hand, was a middle class white kid from Long
Island. They were from two completely different worlds. Had they
not joined the Marines they would never have met each other, or understood
that multiple America's exist simultaneously
depending on one's race, education level, economic status, and where you
might have been born.

But they
were Marines, combat Marines, forged in the same crucible of Marine
training, and because of this bond they were brothers as close, or closer,
than if they were born of the same woman.

The mission orders they
received from the sergeant squad leader I am sure went something like: "Okay
you two clowns, stand this post and let no unauthorized personnel or
vehicles pass." "You clear?" I am also sure Yale and Haerter then rolled
their eyes and said in unison something like: "Yes Sergeant," with just
enough attitude that made the point without saying the words, "No kidding
sweetheart, we know what we're doing." They then relieved two other Marines
on watch and took up their post at the entry control point of Joint Security
Station Nasser, in the Sophia section of Ramadi, Al Anbar,
Iraq.

A few minutes later a
large blue truck turned down the alley way-perhaps 60-70 yards in length-and
sped its way through the serpentine of concrete jersey walls. The truck
stopped just short of where the two were posted and detonated, killing them
both catastrophically. Twenty-four brick masonry houses were damaged or
destroyed. A mosque 100 yards away collapsed. The truck's engine came to
rest two hundred yards away knocking most of a house down before it stopped.
Our explosive experts reckoned the blast was made of 2,000 pounds of
explosives. Two died, and because these two young infantrymen didn't have it
in their DNA to run from danger, they saved 150 of their Iraqi and American
brothers-in-arms.

When I read the situation report about the incident
a few hours after it happened I called the regimental commander for details
as something about this struck me as different. Marines dying or being
seriously wounded is commonplace in combat. We expect Marines regardless of
rank or MOS to stand their ground and do their duty, and even die in the
process, if that is what the mission takes. But this just seemed different.
The regimental commander had just returned from the site and he agreed, but
reported that there were no American witnesses to the event-just Iraqi
police. I figured if there was any chance of finding out what actually
happened and then to decorate the two Marines to acknowledge their bravery,
I'd have to do it as a combat award that requires two eye-witnesses and we
figured the bureaucrats back in Washington would never buy Iraqi statements.
If it had any chance at all, it had to come under the signature of a general
officer.

I traveled to Ramadi the next day and spoke individually to
a half-dozen Iraqi police all of whom told the same story. The blue truck
turned down into the alley and immediately sped up as it made its way
through the serpentine. They all said, "We knew immediately what was going
on as soon as the two Marines began firing." The Iraqi police then related
that some of them also fired, and then to a man, ran for safety just prior
to the explosion. All survived. Many were injured...some seriously. One of
the Iraqis elaborated and with tears welling up said, "They'd run like any
normal man would to save his life." "What he didn't know until then," he
said, "and what he learned that very instant, was that Marines are not
normal." Choking past the emotion he said, "Sir, in the name of God no sane
man would have stood there and done what they did." "No sane man." "They
saved us all."

What we didn't know at the time, and only learned a
couple of days later after I wrote a summary and submitted both Yale and
Haerter for posthumous Navy Crosses, was that one of our security cameras,
damaged initially in the blast, recorded some of the suicide attack. It
happened exactly as the Iraqis had described it. It took exactly six seconds
from when the truck entered the alley until it detonated.

You can
watch the last six seconds of their young lives. Putting myself in their
heads I supposed it took about a second for the two Marines to separately
come to the same conclusion about what was going on once the truck came into
their view at the far end of the alley. Exactly no time to talk it over, or
call the sergeant to ask what they should do. Only enough time to take half
an instant and think about what the sergeant told them to do only a few
minutes before: "...let no unauthorized personnel or vehicles pass." The two
Marines had about five seconds left to live.

It took maybe another
two seconds for them to present their weapons, take aim, and open up. By
this time the truck was half-way through the barriers and gaining speed the
whole time. Here, the recording shows a number of Iraqi police, some of whom
had fired their AKs, now scattering like the normal and rational men they
were-some running right past the Marines. They had three seconds left to
live.

For about two seconds more, the recording shows the Marines'
weapons firing non-stop...the truck's windshield exploding into shards of
glass as their rounds take it apart and tore in to the body of the
son-of-a-***** who is trying to get past them to kill their
brothers-American and Iraqi-bedded down in the barracks totally unaware of
the fact that their lives at that moment depended entirely on two Marines
standing their ground. If they had been aware, they would have known they
were safe...because two Marines stood between them and a crazed suicide
bomber. The recording shows the truck careening to a stop immediately in
front of the two Marines. In all of the instantaneous violence Yale and
Haerter never hesitated. By all reports and by the recording, they never
stepped back. They never even started to step aside. They never even shifted
their weight. With their feet spread shoulder width apart, they leaned into
the danger, firing as fast as they could work their weapons. They had only
one second left to live.

The truck explodes. The camera goes blank.
Two young men go to their God. Six seconds. Not enough time to think about
their families, their country, their flag, or about their lives or their
deaths, but more than enough time for two very brave young men to do their
duty...into eternity. That is the kind of people who are on watch all over
the world tonight-for you.

We Marines believe that God gave
America the greatest gift he could
bestow to man while he lived on this earth-freedom. We also believe he gave
us another gift nearly as precious-our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Coast
Guardsmen, and Marines-to safeguard that gift and guarantee no force on this
earth can every steal it away. It has been my distinct honor to have been
with you here today. Rest assured our America, this experiment in democracy
started over two centuries ago, will forever remain the "land of the free
and home of the brave" so long as we never run out of tough young Americans
who are willing to look beyond their own self-interest and comfortable
lives, and go into the darkest and most dangerous places on earth to hunt
down, and kill, those who would do us harm.